James Cleverly was never going to have the easiest time this morning. The Tory party chairman, considered a safe pair of hands, had been sent out to do the broadcast round, after the party became embroiled in an row about Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments on Grenfell yesterday, which were unhelpfully amplified by the Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.
Even so, Cleverly had probably presumed that he’d at least be in the room when journalists turned the thumb-screws on radio and television. Over on Sky News though, presenter Kay Burley had another plan. The broadcaster began her segment by saying that the empty chair next to her was ‘supposed to be filled by the Chairman of the Conservative party’, who had decided not to show. She then launched into a remarkable tirade, in which she told viewers all the questions she would have asked Cleverly if he’d bothered to show up:
James cleverly gets the empty chair treatment after he pulls out of an interview with @KayBurley
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